Coloring in the Black Hole
by tia8206
Summary: Stories, the LaFleurs had plenty of. It's just that most of them sounded more like science fiction. In 1986, Juliet and James take a road trip.
1. Rain

**This is Part 1 of what's going to be a SHORT ficlet. I know I've said things like that before, but this time I actually mean it. Maybe three parts.**

**Enjoy!  
**

* * *

_"We're moderate, we modernize_  
_'til our hell is a good life."_

- Emily Haines, "Our Hell"

* * *

The house is unnervingly quiet for the first few moments after James LaFleur ducks through the door, but then, it's really just because he's been half-deafened by the rain splattering on the car roof for the past twenty minutes. He's not used to rain like this, hasn't had to deal with furious storms in a good nine years, and anyway, once his ears adjust, the sounds of the boys close to killing each other in the basement take over.

Yanking the door open, he sticks his head through, shaking the rainwater out of his hair and listening at the stop of the stairs. "HEY!" he barks, and it all goes silent, although he hears some shuffling feet and slight panting. "No bloodshed before dinner!"

"We're not doing anything!" comes a howled protest. Seth, by the sound of it.

Yeah, he's heard that one before. "If you put another hole in that wall - "

"I swear!" Andrew yelps.

James pauses, but now they're silent, waiting. Figuring that they'll be on their absolute best behavior only while they know he's listening, he gives up for the time being. As he retreats to the back of the house, the TV turns on, loud. Sounds like "He-Man," James thinks, rubbing a hand over his face.

_"...Fabulous magic powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said..."_ the TV echoes from downstairs.

"BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!" comes a screech.

All right. That's at least half an hour of entertainment, right there. Maybe some semi-quiet. Long enough to get changed, see if Jules needs help with dinner, maybe score a brief makeout session before they're interrupted by "What's for dinner?" and "But I don't LIKE that" and "Nuh-uh, I set the table LAST night, it's HIS turn now!"

Juliet's always been able to tune them out when necessary, anyway, much better than James can, and yet somehow she always seems to know exactly when they're getting into actual trouble versus just making a good-hearted brotherly ruckus. So maybe they really _weren't_ getting into any serious fights down there? Should he have gone down there anyway? Juliet would have gone downstairs. Except... where the hell _is_ she?

"Jules?"

Once he's done kicking through the Transformers in the hallway, he's surprised to find her standing eerily still at the sink, her arms splayed wide, both hands curled around the edge of the counter. She's wearing sweatpants tucked into her winter boots (those ancient L.L. Bean ones, the brown ones from that first winter, back when they were still freezing their asses off in Ann Arbor). It contrasts with just a thin tank top above. Her hair's tied back into a messy low ponytail.

"Hey there," he says curiously, wondering how she got home fast enough to change and lapse into a coma at the counter. Usually she makes it home barely five or ten minutes before him. Those latchkey kids of theirs take the bus, let themselves in after school, have a snack and then walk themselves over to the Fredericksons next door. Because, hey, it's 1986 and nothing bad happens, or at least people don't think it does. As it is, they're the only parents in the neighborhood who still make their six-year-old use a booster seat in the car.

Juliet still isn't responding, tension set clearly in between her shoulder blades.

"Hey," James says, a little louder, a little more concerned.

Juliet half turns, and her forehead is crimped up in anguish. At first panic shoots through him, the way it does sometimes for no good reason at all, like someone's going to find them out, living here in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in the middle of the '80s. Like this isn't supposed to have happened and they're all about to disappear.

"Hi," Juliet finally whispers. She blinks once and then her eyes are brimming, but their house is full and he just said goodbye to Miles and Jin not half an hour ago at work. There's no one else to worry about. Not in this life, not technically. Not if everything that happened, happened.

James approaches without thinking, reaching out for her hips and swiveling her the rest of the way toward him. She leans into him, reaching up and looping her arms around him. Gives up and drops her head onto his shoulder, burying her face in his neck.

"What is it, baby?" he asks as softly as he can, rubbing her back in slow circles. Her skin is warm against his hand and it's March and why is she wearing those furry boots right now?

"I called her school today."

"What'd they say?"

"June 16."

James lets out a long, slow breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Should we get Mr. and Mrs. Ghostbuster to watch 'em?"

Juliet nods, her face still pressed against his neck. Her tears are hot against his skin. "Yeah."

James runs his hand across the back of her head, petting over her hair until he finds the rubber band tying it back. He's always taking out her ponytails, been doing it since goddamn 1975, but he'd think after all these years he could manage to undo them without scalping her. Juliet whimpers a little as the rubber catches on her hair, but finally he gets it undone. So he just holds her for awhile, stroking his hand along the length of her hair, with the noise from the TV leaking out of the basement and an occasional yelp from one of the boys. The rain is hitting the overhang of the kitchen roof, rattling the gutters.

"It's a long drive," he says hesitantly.

"We could fly," she murmurs against him.

"We ain't doin' that."

"I know."

"You sure you wanna do this, baby?"

Juliet pulls away a little bit, then, just enough to meet his eyes. Hers are huge and blue and sad and scared. "No. But I have to."


	2. Road

**Just a heads-up that the structure of the story isn't changing, but rather than posting two more big parts, I'm going to post a few shorter parts similar in length to part 1. No enabling, now. I have to learn to write the shorter ones!**

_

* * *

__"If you find me, hide me, I don't know where I've been._  
_ When you phone me, tell me everything I did._  
_ If I'm sorry you lost me, you'd better make it quick_  
_'Cause this call costs a fortune and it's late where you live._  
_ It's late where you live."_

- Emily Haines, "Crowd Surf off a Cliff"

* * *

"Andrew-come-on-Amelia-Bedelia-is-here!" Seth shouts at the bottom of the stairs before racing back to the front door.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Miles is protesting, the folded highchair thumping against his hip as Seth drags them inside. "What ever happened to 'Aunt Betsy and my-favorite-Uncle-Miles-ever are here'?"

"You ceased to be exist once she was born." Juliet wriggles her hands impatiently, and Betsy obediently hands over the baby, Seth dancing around in an impatient half-circle. Juliet kneels down so Seth can see Amelia, but mostly she's just breathing in that sweet baby smell, even if, at 10 months old, Amelia is already squirming to get down and explore her new surroundings. The LaFleur house has been re-baby-proofed for the few days ahead, and anyway, it's been LaFleur-boy-proofed for years now, and other than the fact that their kids know not to mess with the cleaning supplies, it turns out the two things aren't all that different.

Andrew thunders down the stairs, James right behind him. "Amelia Bedelia!" Andrew says triumphantly.

"Hi to you too," Miles snarks as James grabs the baby from Juliet.

"Wah wah, I see ya every day at work. Hey, Bets." James leans over to give Betsy a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for this. We really appreciate it."

Betsy smiles; James and Juliet had done more than their fair share of baby-sitting since Amelia had been weaned. "No problem. Just don't ignore Miles too long. You know how whiny he gets."

"I promise we found teething rings for both of you," Juliet assures him.

James still hasn't relinquished the baby, who's trying to reach for a picture frame on a high shelf over his shoulder. That picture in the frame: a fading Polaroid from Dharma days, the edges curling up against the glass. Too out-of-focus, too haggard-looking to warrant a frame except it was taken at their induction barbecue in 1974. (And it wasn't like they'd had all that much time to grab their most precious possessions before they got punched out in the security station, anyway.) James moves away a little, shifting the baby down and puffing out his cheeks at her.

"Don't get any ideas," Juliet warns him.

James smirks. "Likewise." Finally he plops the baby on a blanket that the boys have laid out in anticipation, although Amelia is clearly determined to not stay on it. It's amazing how those boys can fight between them and then be falling all over their honorary baby sister.

"Hey guys, you know what we got? I rented 'Back to the Future' for the VCR," Miles tells the boys, sending James and Juliet a devilish smirk.

"Yeah!" Andrew cheers.

"Remember you don't use the bad language in that movie, right, guys?" James prompts.

Seth glances up from his spot on the floor, trying to show Amelia the baby toys James had located in the attic yesterday. "But Daddy, this morning you said son of a - "

"OK!" James interrupts, clapping his hands together and ignoring Juliet's sideward glare. "Time for us to get going."

Seth frowns. "And you swear you're not going to Disney without us?"

"Wouldn't dream of it."

Juliet starts running down her litany. "OK, you know you if you wake up before 7, you have to play quietly in your rooms, NO FIGHTING because it'll upset the baby. Seth, peanut butter does _not_ go in shoes and Andrew, if you _ever_ lock your brother in the closet again - "

"I know, I know," Andrew mutters darkly.

"Jeez, Jim," Miles pipes up. "Wouldn't it be amazing if someone could invent some kind of tiny little phone you could take around with you everywhere? So if the kids started acting up..."

"You and your ideas," Betsy murmurs in wonderment.

She's a sweet girl, and Juliet's happy Miles found her, but all the same, she can't help thinking sometimes Betsy might not be the brightest wrench in the toolbox. The girl never ever wonders why her husband's so damn obsessed with the future and all those fancy, mostly _technically_ imaginary, gadgets... and why they all, including Jin, play pretty damn fast and loose with the stock market, yet never seem to invest in anything that's burned them yet? She never _wonders?_ Then again, even if she did, why the hell would she ever possibly settle on the theory of 'trapped in the past'? (_Trapped?_ Is that still what they are? Do they stop being trapped at some point? When they catch up to a future that's already passed them by? Or had they already stopped being trapped? When they had decided to just _live?_)

"You remember Andrew is allergic to strawberries, right?" Juliet blurts out.

Andrew heaves a gigantic sigh. "We all know that, Mom."

"Just checking." She and James give the boys hugs and kisses goodbye, and it tugs at her heart the way Seth's chin is suddenly trembling, but she just cups his face in both her hands and knows he's embarrassed to break down in front of his brother. "We'll call every night and every morning, OK?" she whispers to him, but then the rest of her list invades her brain, and Juliet snaps her face up toward Miles and Betsy. "And they have swimming at the rec on Friday at 11..."

"We know!"

James is pulling her toward the door.

"Too bad you didn't get that cool wood-paneled station wagon!" Miles calls after them.

Jeez, admit to test-driving one for amusement's sake _one_ time...

* * *

They're halfway down the block when James laughs. "You didn't tell 'em to not color your shoes."

Juliet is so wired that she actually taps the brake. Stupid white nurses' shoes, of _course_ they'd looked like something to color. It'll be at least a decade before they all start wearing scrubs and clogs. "You think I should've?"

"That was what? Two years ago? I'm just messin' with ya."

She shoots him a glare, her jaw clenched.

James coughs. "Sorry. You sure you don't want me to drive?"

Red light. She stops and shakes her head, determined. "Let me have first shift. I need to."

He looks over at her, suddenly as serious as he was silly a moment ago. "You got it, blondie."

There's the sign for I-95 South, huge and bright green and exactly the same as ever, and Juliet tightens her fingers around the steering wheel, her heart rate revving up as the engine revs up. She has to remind herself how to breathe for a minute, the surreality of the entire situation setting in around her for what's probably the millionth time since that very first white flash. Her eyes slide over toward James in the passenger seat, and he must sense her eyes on him, considering the brilliantly reassuring smile he gives her when he turns his head a moment later.

Juliet_ knows,_ has known for _years_ that he doesn't think she should be doing this, any of this, and that's a big part of the reason why all along she's avoided it.

And sure, Juliet's accepted this whole thing, has accepted it for a long, long, long time now. The instant after the doctor plopped Andrew into her arms on a rainy night in October 1978, she knew this was_ it_, this was her life and it was _here_, not anywhere else, not any _time_ else, not anymore. And she held onto that baby, and she held onto James, and the three of them cried for all different reasons and some of the same ones.

It faded for a long time after that, the need. But then it started up again, the gravity pulling at her, accumulating from every page on the calendar they live all over again.

That same sort of gravity he'd avoided altogether in 1976. But she doesn't want to change anything. That's not possible, she knows it. All the same, it's all gotten too much lately, more and more as the kids get older, and she watches them play and fight and share sandwiches and pinch each other during car rides and hide each others' homework. And then, that day Andrew hit a kid on the playground for pushing Seth - even though they'd had to punish him for hitting someone - but God, it's just... the _two_ of them, those two boys, together.

It's amazing and infuriating and wonderful, and it hurts more than she would have ever expected.

So James is doing this for her, just going with what she wants and not saying a word against it, not anymore. For that, she's unendingly grateful.

After all, how often does your big sister graduate from high school? Only once in a lifetime. Or twice, if you're Juliet.


	3. Stop

_"Too late today, for the sky to open_.  
_ No living place lay here for the sky to fall_.

_No one remembers when the wheel was broken_,  
_ Made a rut so deep, made a massive hole."_

- Emily Haines, "Pretty Head"

* * *

_(Welcome to South Carolina. __Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places.)_

They switch driving duties under the watchful gaze of the South of the Border neon giant. They've only been down this far one other time together ("together": their code for this life they're living now), but obviously this time, they don't give a flying fuck about ridiculous sombreros and plastic sunglasses and theme restaurants. Juliet sinks into the passenger seat. Props her elbow against the doorframe and closes her eyes. James wonders what she's thinking, wonders exactly what in the hell he's even supposed to be _saying_.

The first thing on his brain is to make some kind of joke, like it'll all be OK because they're going to invent bottled water, and he stays silent because this isn't exactly the time for jokes, whether or not they're at this joyously tacky tourist trap.

But Juliet suddenly reaches over and shoves a Fleetwood Mac cassette into the tape deck, so he just turns the key in the ignition and that's that.

Goddamn but he still wonders what the hell they'd been thinking, settling down where it's only a day or two's drive to the places they've technically been trying to avoid all these years, but at the same time, it was no accident.

They'd been led handcuffed into that goddamn sub like a couple of no-good prisoners with shivs up their sleeves, no more questions, no more excuses, after five fucking minutes to grab a fraction of whatever they'd accumulated in three years. No chance to say goodbye to Miles or Jin, no chance for James to get the ring hidden under the floorboards. And definitely no chance to figure out what the fuck Jackass and the rest of 'em exactly thought they were getting themselves up to, out there in the jungle. James had drawn the map for that fat balding fuck Radzinsky, but Kate? Well, seems like they couldn't catch her. Hey, that girl always could run. All she _could_ do, most of the time.

So James and Juliet had drunk their juice, passed out with blood still on their faces, and then the two of them were being shaken awake by a very awkwardly apologetic representative from Ann Arbor. And it wasn't like these people had any authority in the real world.

_(Welcome. We're Glad Georgia's on Your Mind.)_

Turns out, the matter had gone all the way up to the DeGroots, who couldn't quite understand the wave of paranoia that had swept through the island settlement when it came to some very obvious Hostile intruders - who were clearly _not_ involved with Jim LaFleur or Juliet Burke. Nonetheless, they _were_ being let go from the company, but hey, there was a parting settlement, and could they just please sign these documents regarding confidentiality... oh, and they weren't planning to _sue_ the Initiative, right?

Sign on the dotted line, Dharma hands over a bunch of money? James and Juliet had shot each other incredulous looks, signed just about as fast as they could, got a check, got an apartment in Ann Arbor, and...?

See, this was the part they hadn't planned out. Those first few weeks they ended up basically nocturnal. Reading, talking, drinking too much. Fucking each others' brains out. And trying some way, _any_ way, to figure out exactly what kind of life they were supposed to be making for themselves now. No Miles, no Jin, no friends, no house, no jobs. No goddamn island and definitely no way of ever figuring out how the hell to get home (_home?_ She was his home. And if she was his home, then what was _her_ home? Was it with him? Would she always be trying to find a way back? Maybe it was good he hadn't been able to propose. Maybe it was good that damned ring was just sitting under the floorboards, gathering dust.)

And so they'd usually fall asleep just as the first light of dawn started creeping in, through those tiny, dirty windows that granted them a lovely view of an alley behind a pizza place. They never really brought up Rachel, or Julian, or Clementine.

After about a month, with some of the money from Dharma they bought a VW van of their very own, just started driving. At night they'd get fancy hotel suites, cheap motel rooms, camp out in the back of the van. Whatever they felt like doing.

They saw a lot of concerts. Stuff their younger selves would have given their right arms or a year's allowance to see. Iggy Pop. Bob Seger. Fleetwood Mac. The Clash. Rachel had loved The Kinks; James and Juliet saw them twice. Hippie times weren't what they used to be, and London punk was heading right on over the damn pond.

But most of all: They had no fucking clue what the hell they were doing. James couldn't figure out whether they were happy or sad. Couldn't figure out whether they were _supposed_ to be happy or sad.

They were at a Led Zeppelin show in Tempe, Arizona when James looked over to see Juliet's shoulders shaking. Fear washed over him - was one of them finally losing their shit? Were they wasting their time, did she want to figure out how to get back to the island, did she want to find her family? Did she regret this entire insane thing, and which step along the way had finally convinced her of that fact?

Except when she looked up at him, her face was full of laughter. "We just - can you believe - " She cut herself off, flinging a hand at the stage. "I just want the Smiths to form so we can go _see_ them already!" Juliet dissolved into giggles. Oh yeah, they were definitely losing their shit, but then James was laughing too, and not long after that, they steered their hippie van right back to that crappy apartment in Ann Arbor.

Turns out, Dharma had expelled their two little buddies in the meantime.

Apparently Jackass had decided to throw some damn hydrogen bomb into the drilling site at the Swan, Kate went after him, who knows, but all hell had broken loose, although the damn bomb didn't detonate on impact. No, apparently it had started pulling everything metal into the hole, then there was a flash of white light and their Oceanic 815 pals vanished. Miles and Jin weren't anywhere near the site when it had happened, but the vague suspicion cast over LaFleur & Co. was enough to grant them a couple of one-way tickets on Drugged-Up Sub, too.

_(Welcome to Florida, the Sunshine State_.)

* * *

Half an hour south of Jacksonville, James realizes Juliet's fallen asleep, the side of her face pressed against the window. He slides a hand over her knee. "Baby, we got some directions in the glove box."

Juliet hums sleepily, reaching out blindly for the latch before opening her eyes. "Here?" she mumbles, blinking sleep out of her eyes, unfolding the papers.

"Those're the ones."

"Um..." She rubs at her face and yawns, glancing at the dashboard clock - 7 p.m. "Wh-where are we?"

"Not too far from St. Augustine. What exit we want?"

Juliet throws him a curious look before glancing down at the page in front of her. "311. What are we...?"

"Thought I'd work somethin' out a little nice for tonight."

St. Augustine is a crazy town, he's never been before, but they roll right on through town and he can't help gaping at the architecture, which is supposedly Colonial Spanish but just looks tall and spiky and gothic. Their hotel is right on the Intracoastal, and once they're up in their big quiet room with no Micromachines or Legos in sight, Juliet turns to him and gives him the kind of smile he hasn't seen from her in at least a few days. "This is perfect, James. Thank you."

"You wanna call the kids and then go out an' explore some? Get some dinner?"

Juliet's eyes go wide, although he knows her well enough to know it's all an act. "Are you asking me out on a date?"

"Unless you'll put out first, then yeah."

"Romantic. Very, very romantic."

They have the kind of night he thinks he'll want to remember for years, dinner under a leafy canopy of palm trees... although it's not like they haven't seen enough of those already to last them a lifetime. But still. It's fucking beautiful. And afterward, they actually take a walk on the beach at twilight, like they're in some kind of postcard (the kind appealing to time-travelers who ditched their kids for a few days, to attend the high school graduation of someone who's actually supposed to be 48 years old).

Juliet's got her bare feet in the water, wearing a fluttery white skirt. The heels of her shoes are hooked over the first two fingers of her right hand, and her hair is sort of wild and blowing all over the place, and goddammit, she looks so fucking gorgeous in this changing light and he would give anything to take that lingering pain away.

Clementine, well, somewhere out there she's 15, and he's never gonna know what he missed with her. And then in another way, he knows exactly what he's missed with her, watching his boys grow. And Clementine herself will probably think she'd dodged a bullet, anyway, considering whatever the hell Cassidy's told her all these years.

Maybe it's all better this way, except for this empty need somewhere inside Juliet, something they don't talk a whole hell of a lot about anymore. And he wonders if they're not bringing more trouble onto themselves this way (and what if they change something? Except that's not possible, right? Jules is always so sure of it, doesn't understand why sometimes he freaks that something will change and the kids will disappear or something equally mindbendingly awful).

He decides to take a risk, catching her free hand in his. "Tell me what's goin' on with the Carlsons in 1986."

Someone in her face changes again, that radiant look dimming, and James mentally kicks himself for fucking up this moment as Juliet lets out a long breath. She chews on her lower lip for a moment before pulling at his hand, and they start walking again.

"My... my parents were spending a lot of time together. It was really freaking us out. Me and - and Rachel. We were really worried they were actually going to get back together."

"You didn't want that?"

Juliet shakes her head. "Not anymore. It wouldn't have lasted, anyway. Let's see. Rachel's going to win some big arts award at graduation. I can't remember the name of it, but they gave her a bunch of money for college. This... this weekend my mom's going to try to ground her because she's going to stay out all night and there's going to be a huge fight."

"An' you?"

"Oh, god. Well, you know. I was... I was a nerd. I went to the science and tech high school and I was the coolest one there, so what does that tell you about my social life?" She rolls her eyes. "Oh. And Rachel had been hinting around to our parents for this bracelet for graduation. Of course they were oblivious. As usual. And they were chipping in to get her all this fancy luggage, which I _knew_ she was going to use only about twice. Which turned out to be the case. So I..." Her face crumples for a second before she regains her composure. "I took most of the money I'd saved from baby-sitting, and I got the damn bracelet for her. And I was so excited to give it to her at graduation and then - then I lost it. I spent half the day worrying about it, and then it turned out I'd just left it in my mom's car." She shakes her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "God, and we had this awkward lunch with both our parents, and I kept freaking out about her present, and Rachel kept wanting to leave so she could meet up with her friends and..." Juliet shakes her head again.

James laughs softly. He can't exactly imagine this form of Juliet, shy and anxious.

Except now she fiddles with strap on one of the shoes in her hand, looking every bit shy and anxious. "I'm not sure why exactly I want to do that day over again."

"'Cause you know exactly where and when everyone's gonna be."

She lets go of the shoe and curls her fingers around his again. "I didn't think I was going to be so nervous about all of this."

"Y'know, we could just blow off the whole damn thing. Go to Disney World instead. Whaddya say, we can sneak upstairs, do it in the Cinderella castle?"

"Maybe on the way back." Juliet tries - unsuccessfully - to hide a grin. Turns out Other training wears off after a decade or so.

* * *

That night they have the kind of sex had by people who don't have to worry about kids down the hall. Other hotel guests, maybe, but it's like the uncertainty dissipates, at least for the time being, and he's pretty sure he's gonna have clawmarks on his back. Which actually makes him pretty damn happy, all things considered.

Afterward Juliet tucks herself against his front, her damp back sticking to his chest, and he tightens his arms around her.

"I wish I could talk to her," Juliet whispers suddenly. "I wish the kids could know her. I wish you..."

James feels an unexpected lump in his throat, that old insecurity rolling through him, and would she change things if she could? Instead he swallows heavily and presses a kiss to the back of her head. "I know, baby. I know."

"James. What if... what if I... I mean, what if I just...?"

"You ain't gonna talk to her," he whispers, trying to convince himself. "Whatever happened, happened."

Her voice is almost silent, choked with tears. "What if I can't help myself?"

"Juliet. Listen ta me. I _know_ you. And you're gonna do great." He pulls her closer, burying his face in her hair. _Please please please don't try, baby. Please. Whatever happened, happened._ "You sleepy?"

"Mmm."

"Let's go to sleep, OK? It'll be better in the mornin'."

She waits long enough that he's almost asleep when he hears it, and even then it's quieter than something that could even be considered a whisper. "What if it's not?"

* * *

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	4. Here

_"She's still calling around to find half an hour._  
_She'll always have a place in my mirror._  
_She's got no more time, now she wants mine _  
_but I'm all out too."_

Emily Haines, "Detective Daughter"

* * *

Rachel's high school is situated along a busy route next to a pizzeria that will go out of business in 1988, to be replaced by a car stereo shop. Juliet is jittery from too many cups of coffee as she fiddles with the round plastic sunglasses in her hands, wondering when the fashions stopped looking so ridiculous and dated, and just became... their _stuff_, no big deal.

The parking lot's already half full, and James turns off the car but she doesn't move, watching families making their way to the football field where the ceremony will be held. Rachel and Juliet will be with their mother, and their father will arrive separately, all of them converging in this place for one of the last few times before her parents have some kind of blowout and they meet only for subsequent graduations.

And then, well. Juliet squeezes her eyes closed. And then her parents will die all over again, she supposes.

Her eyes still closed, she feels James reach over and cup her elbow in his big, warm palm like he knows exactly what she's thinking, or not, but god, he had to live over the day of his parents' deaths, too, and obviously his were so far worse it's unimaginable, and suddenly she feels a little ridiculous sitting here frozen like this, and she forces her eyes open.

"Hey," she says, blinking in the sunlight.

"Hey to you, too." He reaches into the back seat for her floppy sunhat, and Juliet can't keep from smiling a tiny bit. The disguise is a little ridiculous, considering even if her family saw her, it's not exactly a given that they'd assume she's a time-traveling version of their 15-year-old.

Trying to shove down her fear, she raises her eyes to James' as she takes the hat from him. "Thanks."

"You ready?" he asks her gently. It's obvious that he doesn't ask again if she's _sure_, doesn't offer her an out, and Juliet's glad for that because she'd be tremendously tempted to take him up on it by this point.

The ground seems to rock under her feet, and Juliet digs her shoes into the gravel of the parking lot, her heart slamming in her chest, convincing herself this is really, really, really real. It doesn't take that long to convince herself, though, all things considered, as she slides the hat onto her head. Because when she straightens up, she sees her father striding across the parking lot, toward the football field. He's wearing a brown tweed jacket she doesn't remember, but she'd recognize his gait anywhere.

Something like a whimper escapes her then, her hand shooting out to grasp James' elbow. "That's... That's..." Juliet can't even get the words out, but James glances across to where she's looking.

"Your dad?" he supplies quietly.

"It's like..." Juliet wants to close her eyes again, this is too much, but all the same, she can't stop looking. "It's like seeing a ghost."

"Where'd you an' Rachel an' your mom park?"

Juliet finally drags her eyes away as her father's retreating form grows too distant. "Over there, I think." She gestures toward the far corner of the lot. "We're not here yet, I guess."

Ain't _that_ the truth.

And then she remembers that first night after she and James had returned from their extended hippie road trip, the note on their door in Miles' handwriting. A phone number. Miles and Jin now had an apartment around the block, and a phone, and not much else.

That night the four of them had sat around their living room, Miles sprawled in the papasan chair, Juliet with Jin on the couch, James in a backwards-facing kitchen chair. They'd all acted thrilled to see each other, but by the time they'd gone through a couple of six-packs, the room had gone silent and suddenly no one was looking at each other anymore.

"So... now what?" Miles finally asked, tilting his head at James as though, as the leader of their merry band of time travelers, Jim LaFleur as supposed to be the one with all the answers. But James had glanced over at the look on Juliet's face, and gazed stonily right back at Miles, taking a long sip of beer. Juliet started working on peeling the label off her beer bottle.

"I think..." Jin began, and the three of them instantly turned to him. "I think, we get jobs, and we... we go on. Like before."

Juliet felt her mouth go dry. Here they were acting like sullen teenagers, and Jin had lost more than any of them in this. Far, _far _more. And here he was, this man who'd lost everything, who had gotten so close only to lose it again. And Jin says they just go on.

So they did.

It was easier for the guys; after a few days of searching the classifieds, the three of them got jobs with a landscaping company. No one wanted to work apart, not after three years together. The work was hard, laying sod, digging by hand around pipes, and James would come home exhausted, sore, caked in dirt. Juliet remembered all too well how he'd call her greasemonkey, how he'd smirk at her when she complained about never being able to get her hands clean, but she just left him alone about it. Miles and Jin didn't come over a lot at first, too tired from the hard work, but eventually they adjusted.

Meanwhile, no one at any of the auto shops Juliet visited seemed all that keen on hiring a female mechanic. She couldn't get office work without knowing shorthand, and even waiting tables failed when no one wanted someone past teenager-hood with zero experience. Fancy important research physician? At this point she was looking at a glamorous choice between cleaning lady and baby-sitter.

"I thought second-wave feminism was supposed to be going strong here," she muttered into her pillow one morning, watching once again as James got ready for work.

He'd paused, looking around the room like he'd always looked for his jumpsuit, and after a moment she realized the habit really had been that ingrained in him, because James grimaced a little, glancing back at her. They shared a sad smile, both of them realizing what he'd been looking for. He'd been amazing as a leader; was that really all over now?

James sat down on the bed next to her, running his hand over the bare skin of her back. "S'OK. I got your back here. Go to school for something. Or, shit, I dunno, maybe now's the time to have a baby."

Did he just say...? Her breath froze in her lungs for a minute, her heart thumping.

"Shit," he muttered. "Go figure..."

"James." Juliet somehow managed to sit up, clutching the sheet to her bare front.

"Nah, it's just, I meant to... Well, damn. Hold that thought, blondie." James went around to the far side of the room, opening his top drawer and pulling out a pair of socks from near the back. "It's just, I, leave it to me to just..." He ran his free hand through his hair, agitated.

What the hell did socks have anything to do with this? Was he panicking? Had he just said...? Was he trying to take it back? Except... Amy had told Juliet he'd ordered a ring, months ago now, but Juliet had forced herself to stop wondering about it.

But instead he started digging around in those balled-up socks, and his hand emerged clutching a small velvet box. "So, um," James began uncomfortably, shifting the box from one hand to the other, and her heart turned over in her chest. But oh god, the expression on his face, he looked terrified. And all of a sudden, the only thing Juliet wanted to do was giggle.

"Want to come sit with me?" she asked, trying not to laugh because that wasn't at all what James needed right now.

James had nodded, looking a bit green; once he was next to her, she realized he was shaking a little, and her urge to giggle faded, looking at this man she loved more than anything. Wishing he wasn't so afraid because why _should_ he be, and didn't he _know_ by now she loved him more than anything?

"Guess I got a little bit ahead of myself there a minute ago," he choked out, fiddling with the box. "Juliet, I, uh... I just was waiting, I wanted it to be nice, and..." He rubbed a hand over his face, his jaw clenched. "I ain't so good with..."

"I think you're just fine."

He looked directly into her eyes, his full of fear, his forehead creased.

"Do you just want to give me what's in the box?" Her heart was still thumping.

"Yeah," he finally got out, and the lines in his face smoothed as he started to grin at her, and he opened the box, and that was that. They got married a month later in downtown Ann Arbor at the Washtenaw County Courthouse, just as their first real winter began to take hold. Miles and Jin attended, of course. Jin gave them a camera as a wedding gift and Miles gave them a box of condoms; Juliet laughed until she cried. The day was no big deal, and yet at the same time it was everything.

_We just go on, _Jin had said.

* * *

The stage is set up in the middle of the football field, folding chairs grouped around three sides of it. Juliet's not sure whether they should just take seats up in the bleachers, the crowd is big and she feels guilty about taking good seats from family members who are... well, family members who are attending this for the first time.

They pick seats, finally, at the edge of the left side. Near the front. She's pretty sure she and her parents had sat nearby, but closer to the center. Is she supposed to be watching them? Rachel? Herself? She wishes she remembered more specifics about the day, and suddenly Juliet's wracked with guilt. She has decades still to seek out glimpses of Rachel, only about a decade for both of her parents. But this is her first time doing this, and what if it's the only time?

And she knows that what she needs from this, right now, today, more than anything, is Rachel.

She wonders what her boys are doing right now. And then... _Oh, for god's sake._ "There I am," she murmurs to James, trying to sound indifferent, probably failing miserably. In a life full of weird things, this is probably the strangest yet, and if she hadn't seen baby Miles and adult Miles in the same room together on multiple occasions, she wouldn't have even thought something like this is possible, but right there...

It's her, but also not. Tall, of course, too skinny, all chest at this point and trying to dress to hide it, no hips. Curly hair halfway down her back, a round baby face, a shy smile, her same eyes. Her dad is leaning over to tell her some stupid joke, judging from the look on her face, the slight eye-roll, the way she punches him softly on the arm before looking away, glancing toward the stage. The younger Juliet is anxiously clutching her handbag, the bag she'd thought Rachel's present was in before it turned up in the car.

"Damn, blondie," James mutters. "You were kinda hot for a nerd."

She's not sure what she'd expected from seeing her own self, but it wasn't this. This feeling, this knowing, everything that's going to happen, the good and the bad, to that teenage girl ten rows over across the aisle. "That girl is the same age as your daughter."

James practically chokes on nothing, glancing back at the version of Juliet that's his wife. "Forget I ever said anythin'."

"Mm-hm." But then the next addition makes Juliet suck in her breath. "There's my mom. She's... she's a year younger than I am now." Her mom has this shoulder-length haircut that's reasonably new right now, a light-blue dress. The teenage Juliet darts her eyes quickly between her parents as they greet each other.

James looks back over, takes Juliet's hand. She can't do anything but lean against him heavily, pressing her lips together as her sinuses flood. "It's OK, baby," he whispers, petting her hair. She just nods, over and over, under his hand.

The graduates are lining up now, in the front corner at the side of the stage, and suddenly this is all happening way too quickly, her parents are _right over there! _There's_ two of her_ on this field r_ight now!_ Her kids were born _seven and nine years_ after _she_ was, and none of this makes any sense! Panic panic panic and she's clutching at James, and Rachel is _right there_, oh god, Rachel in her black Rayban sunglasses with the hot pink edges. And her short hair, so much darker now than it will be after the chemo, and oh god, what if she said something, what if Rachel had gone to the doctor earlier, would she have had a better prognosis, would she have beaten the cancer the first time, would she have stayed healthy, but then would that mean Juliet didn't stay on the island, but then she would never have met James, and Andrew and Seth wouldn't exist, and and and... _no. No no no no, it doesn't matter. Whatever happened, happened. _She says that to herself, over and over and over again. _Whatever happened, happened._

This all always happened. But then... does that mean she was always here, at this graduation? That when she was fifteen years old, she was standing maybe fifty feet away from a grownup version of her own self? And her future _husband?_ Why hadn't she considered that before? And now Juliet's wracking her brain, trying to remember if she'd noticed any thing strange, like a blond stranger wearing a hat looking over at them far too many times, but she can't remember, and why not, what's she supposed to do, is she supposed to try something, what if she always had, and to whom, would anyone know? The crowd is loud and antsy, people getting impatient for the ceremony to start.

_I'm here, _she thinks, trying to send a mental message to Rachel._ I'm here. I was here, I was here, I was here.  
_

Rachel just grins and waves across the field toward her family.


	5. Us

**This chapter goes out to the amazing makealist... If you're not reading her "Ghosts of L.A." right now, you should be. (OK, not literally "right now." After you read this and leave a review, of course.)**

* * *

_"Steal time when there isn't enough_  
_Turn the wheel, I'm backing it up_  
_Don't feel old, hope I'm backing up_  
_Don't feel old_...  
_1975 ringing in my right ear."_

- Emily Haines, "Shrine to Fast Goodbyes"

* * *

How many more times is James supposed to say it's OK when it's not?

Instead he just keeps an arm tightly around Juliet, watching as the graduates take their seats, waiting throughout speeches from the principal, the superintendent, the valedictorian. He and Juliet share a small, awkward smile at that; when Juliet's a senior, she will (or already did, however the hell that works) purposely flub a couple of tests so she doesn't have to be the one to make a speech.

About a dozen graduates collect their special awards, Rachel smiling and posing for a second on stage; James sneaks a peek over at the Carlsons as Juliet's mother - what the hell is he supposed to think of her as? Dana? Mrs. Carlson? Ex-Mrs. Carlson? Except it doesn't matter, he'll never meet her - half-stands to snap a photograph.

The teenage Juliet is clapping and cheering with her dad. The Juliet next to him watches the stage, very still, and for just a second he thinks he sees her lower lip tremble.

His own wave of sadness passes over him, then. One that he didn't expect. Mostly he's thought about her in all of this, whether it was be a good idea at all to even _be _here (he's firmly in the "not" category, thanks and no more callers and have a good fuckin' day). But what he wasn't thinking about was seeing this other Juliet - not in this way. More as a novelty, something he and his wife could share a knowing smile over. Instead, what he sees is a shy and sweet and awkward girl, but also innocent and so... so goddamn _buoyant_. And shit, that hurts. Where does that buoyancy disappear to?

(And somewhere out there, there's a version of him that's still an entire year away from pulling his very first con.)

Diplomas get passed out, and Rachel crosses the stage for hers, pumping her fist in the air to scattered laughter. Juliet's mom is taking more pictures.

Jealous. He realizes he's jealous, that's definitely part of it, there's their mama, _right there,_ all huge smiles and camera-snapping, and, well. _Shit._ Except he'd bet the entire goddamn LaFleur stock portfolio that he's not gonna put the camera down for one fucking second when his boys have their graduations.

At some point he realizes Juliet's turned her head, but she's watching _him_, not her family. "You OK?" she whispers, sliding her hand into his, her eyes telling him that she knows exactly what he's thinking. As usual.

He leans over, presses a kiss to her temple, and she reaches out to touch his face. "Yeah. You?"

"I'm OK."

_I'm OK. He's OK. Everyone's OK,_ rings out in his head. When Andrew was born, everything was just perfect, unbelievable but still, perfect. That day, Juliet calling him in from the living room, and her standing there with that big belly, standing in a growing puddle, and even her socks were wet, and the two of them just stood staring at each other for way too long, shocked that this was actually _happening_.

According to Juliet, it was a perfectly normal labor and birth, although it frankly had scared the shit out of him and then he didn't want to let the baby, or Juliet, out of his sight for an instant. The nurses would kick him out every night, and every morning he'd be back the second he was allowed in until Juliet and the baby were released from the hospital.

Miles was over a lot in the beginning, and although he wasn't exactly comfortable dealing with a baby, he was damn good when it came to unloading the dishwasher or folding clothes. Or just keeping them company while they were more or less trapped in the apartment with a newborn during the cold weather. Jin visited in the hospital, brought the baby a stuffed panda, and then he disappeared for awhile. No one could blame the guy, really, even though none of them really talked about it much.

And then they were so in love with this tiny little new life in their cramped apartment, and the baby babbling and the tiny socks and the strained vegetables perpetually smeared on the surface of the high chair, and it just felt like they were being forgiven by the universe for anything and everything. But they must have been out of their goddamn minds all the same. Because once Andrew started sleeping through the night, they figured they weren't getting any younger, might as well start working on the sequel. It had taken awhile to conceive Andrew, it would take awhile again, anyway... right?

But then Andrew started teething. And teething meant screaming, and crying, and not sleeping, and screaming some more. Oh, and more crying. And more not sleeping. Break out the birth control again, this was a terrible idea, and really, they could wait until Andrew was in kindergarten or first grade or high school or had his own place, right?

One afternoon James was yet again pacing the apartment with Andrew gnawing desperately on a frozen waffle when Juliet came in quietly, closing the door behind her and slumping against it, staring at them, not speaking.

"Hey hot mama, you mind, he's been screamin' at me for an hour and I really gotta pee."

Juliet just kept watching them, but he really did need to pee, so he dumped the baby in her arms and hurried down the hall. By the time he was out a couple minutes later, Juliet had the baby in his stroller, sliding it back and forth over the parquet floor. Her handbag was still looped over her shoulder as she stared at that Dharma Polaroid they had propped up on a shelf.

"Hey, your, uh..." James tried to gesture toward the bag on her arm. Why the hell wasn't she saying anything? This was starting to unnerve him.

Juliet looked at the bag, confused, like she didn't even know she owned such a thing. Finally she slid it down along her arm, thumping it to the flood where she stood. "You know how..." Before she could go on, Andrew turned up the volume and Juliet scooped him right back out of the stroller and onto her hip, turning back and forth at the waist to rock him. The baby grabbed onto her hair, calming slightly as he smeared mashed waffle into it. Juliet just looked down at the baby without trying to pull her hair from his hands. "I think his waffle is defrosting," she finally said. Andrew ramped up his crying again.

Oh yeah, James was seriously starting to get creeped out. "OK, blondie, you better tell me what the hell is goin' on."

"Other than the waffle defrosting?" They were speaking louder than usual, to be heard over the baby. Juliet's forehead furrowed. "You know... how we thought we should start trying again? And then we changed our minds?"

James glanced over at the pile of laundry no one had finished folding since yesterday. "Uh... yeah?"

Juliet tilted her head, raising an eyebrow. "Too late."

It took an astonishingly long time for that to sink in. In the meantime, James' eyes drifted to Andrew on her hip, his little face red from crying so damn long. _Oh, shit, _was his first thought,_ oh shit oh shit oh shit, that wasn't supposed to work so fast. _

"You mean... You mean that you...? You... You're tryin' to say...?"

"Yeah. That is exactly what I'm trying to say."

But James glanced back at Andrew. Yeah, they'd bet on the Cowboys in the '78 Super Bowl, and the Steelers that January, but _fuck_, the Dharma payout was pretty much gone, their stocks weren't going to turn into gold overnight, and they had tuition payments for Juliet, rent, baby-sitter, groceries,_ shit shit shit_ and Andrew was going to be teething forever and they were going to have another newborn and their kids were gonna be, what? Eighteen months apart? Not even that? And James and Juliet were never going to sleep or be able to speak at a normal volume ever, ever again.

Except just then, Andrew calmed down again as he brought his fistful of Juliet's hair to his mouth, chewing on it, and he paused and let out a big ol' happy smile at his daddy.

James finally looked up at Juliet, and she was just standing there with waffle in her hair, some combination of terrified/upset/not-caring-about-waffle-in-her-hair, and he let out a long, low breath. "Well, all right then."

"All right?" she said incredulously. They stared at each other for a second before a little smile came onto her face, one he unexpectedly felt himself return.

"Yeah. All right."

Her smile grew and she hoisted Andrew a little higher, pulling her hair out of his mouth and kissing the baby on his forehead. "Your parents are incredibly inarticulate sometimes," she informed him, before leaning over to kiss James, too. He grinned against her lips and wrapped his arms around the both of them, waffle bits getting every-damn-where, and Juliet pressed her face into his neck and started to laugh.

It was all gonna be all right.

Except by March 1980 - when Juliet was screaming bloody murder in the delivery room, digging her fingers into his arm and the doctor was saying something was wrong, the baby was stuck, its heart rate was down - nothing felt all right at all. The room was somehow humming with James' own fear. Juliet needed a C-section, they were getting her onto a gurney to take her to the OR, a nurse injecting something into her IV and the doctor telling James he can't go with them. And James, protesting (OK, yelling) that was his _wife_ and his _baby_, and he _needed_ to be there, Juliet telling him it was OK, it was OK, and at least he managed to get out that he loved her before they left him standing there in the fucking hall.

He realized he had no idea what to do, was he supposed to call Miles, except Miles was watching Andrew and...

There was a payphone in the hall, gleaming stainless steel with its blue AT&T bell logo. When did the government break up that particular monopoly, anyway? He can't even fucking remember, losing his grasp on the here and now. "Jin?" James managed to choke out before he started crying, deep shuddering sobs that somehow managed to convey whatever fear he couldn't speak.

It was pretty much the longest fucking forty-five minutes of his life. Jin showed up right before the end of it, when a nurse came out with a bundle in her arms. "Mr. LaFleur? Congratulations. Your son is just fine."

James looked down at that squished-up sleeping face, the tiny hand curled up right next to it, then looked back up at the nurse in disbelief. "He's OK? She's OK?"

The nurse flashed him a huge smile. "Everyone's OK."

Juliet, Amy, the infirmary, Dharma. _He's OK, she's OK, everyone's OK._ Jin right at his side. Their own fucking happy ending, dammit. James' knees weakened and when the nurse handed him the baby, he had to concentrate to keep his arms from shaking as Jin smiled wide and thanked the nurse profusely.

James looked down at the baby in disbelief. Little tuft of blond hair, Juliet's lips.

"I heard your wife is studying to become a Labor & Delivery nurse."

James looked up again. "Uh... uh, yeah."

The nurse smiled. "At least now she'll have a story to tell her patients."

Stories, the LaFleurs had plenty of. It's just that most of them sounded more like science fiction.

When they finally let him in to see her, Juliet was still half-asleep under a couple of layers of thin white hospital blankets. He sat down next to the bed, the baby still in his arms, sound asleep. Was he supposed to wake her up? No, he should let her sleep, right? But what if she was mad he didn't show her the baby as soon as possible? What if the baby got hungry, was he supposed to get him a bottle?

Sometimes he wished this whole husband-and-father thing came with an instruction book.

The baby shifted in his arms then, snorting a bit with his eyes still tightly closed, and Juliet mumbled something. James took that as an excuse to rub his thumb over her cheek. "Hey there, sleepin' beauty."

She opened her eyes and squinted, looking a little stoned. "Hi," she murmured, and looked at the baby in his arms, eyes still closed, but now experimenting with sticking out his tongue. "Is that our baby?"

"Nah, it's just some other baby I rented." Damn, he couldn't help himself sometimes. "We got ourselves another boy, blondie. Just like you thought."

"Oh," she whispered, slowly reaching out a hand to touch the baby's face. "Oh, god, I don't know, he... he looks pretty good to me. Maybe we could keep him."

"Maybe we could. You OK? You need anythin', you in pain, I could get the doctor...?"

She squeezed her eyes shut a couple of times, her mouth opening a little. "Mmm. No, I... just... I can't figure out how to hold the baby." She was definitely still stoned. "He's OK?"

"He's OK, you're OK, everyone's OK," James assured her. Assured his own wildly thumping heart. Holding the baby tighter.

"We're here," Juliet said, her eyes dropping closed again.

"Here, where?" Is he supposed to try to reason with her right now?

"We're... we're just... we're_ here." _Juliet opened her eyes, looked right at them. This time she smiled.

* * *

Juliet rests her head on his shoulder as the graduates disperse among their families, angled just enough that she can watch her family. She's still got those big sunglasses on, but they're not that dark and he can see her face. The longing. The way she blinks and the tear shining in the corner of her eye.

But after a few minutes of pictures, Rachel with her little sister, Rachel with their mother, their father, Rachel with an assortment of friends, they pick up their stuff. Join the row of people at the end of their row, filing out, away from them. Juliet tenses against him, he sees her jaw clenching, the sudden anger in her eyes as she inhales sharply. Her back stiffens against his arm like her entire body is about to revolt, her breath speeding up.

They watch them go.

They watch almost everyone go, until only a few small clusters of families remain. Juliet pulls away from him, watching the empty chairs where her family had been. He wants to ask her what she wants to do now, does she want to follow them to the restaurant, get a table in the corner, hide away? Go back to their hotel, go back home, go to fucking Fiji, anything she wants. But Juliet suddenly pauses, tilting her head and pulling off her sunglasses.

"No," she gasps out._ "No."_

"Juliet - "

But she pulls further away from them, yanking her arm away from his, stumbling forward, across the aisle to those deserted metal folding chairs. "No! No, no, no no."

"Juliet - " James lunges after her, his heart thumping painfully. This entire thing was a horrible fucking idea, what is she doing to herself, they have to _leave_, they have to stop this and forget any of it ever fucking happened, she's just torturing herself now and -

Except Juliet is kneeling down, reaching under a chair in the row behind. She twists around and holds up a small silver box. "James. Something - Rachel's present - something - this didn't - this isn't what happened. Something changed. Oh, god. No. No no no." Her eyes are desperate when they meet his. "The boys, I - "

"Isn't this - didn't you want - " How is he even supposed to ask this?

"Did I want something to change?" she bursts out incredulously, still perched on the ground, balancing with one hand on the seat. Her face twists. "James, I - how could you think - this is our _life_, no, I don't want anything to change, I don't know what - I mean..."

He feels sick, his surroundings seeming to spin around him. She's always the one arguing that nothing can change, he's been the one afraid of it, afraid she wants to take it back sometimes, if only she could. But she's just staring at him, shaking her head over and over, her blue eyes locked into his. "How could you not know that? That I'm in this with you, 100 percent? I'm in this with _you_, James."

James runs a hand through his hair, stepping forward and kneeling in front of her so they're at the same height. "I don't know, baby. I just..."

"Well, it's incredibly stupid of you, OK?" Juliet is half-crying, half-laughing, still clutching the box. "I wouldn't have, if I had known. What the hell could have changed? We're still _here. _I mean, I just - I thought - whatever happened, hap..." She looks at the package in her hands, then back up at him, their eyes locking.

And at the same moment, they know. They just know.

"Oh my god," she whispers.

Somehow James remembers how to breathe. "It was always you," he chokes out.

Juliet reaches out to him, squeezing the box between their hands as she grabs onto him. "No," and her voice is as clear and sure as it's ever been. "It was always us."

* * *

**Just a tiny bit more after this. Feedback has sort of fallen off for this so if you're enjoying it, please leave a review. Thank you!**


	6. Home

_"And on the way, not a word was spoken._  
_There's not much to say._  
_Already gave some, already gave too much._  
_I don't want to be that girl who can't get over it."_

- Emily Haines, "Pretty Head"

* * *

"Quantum Computer Services," Juliet says.

James looks up from his section of the paper (local arts, go figure), spread out across their formica table at a diner just north of Savannah. "Which one's that?"

She's got the business section, takes another sip of coffee. "That one becomes AOL. I think."

"Ya know they have that merger with Time Warner around the turn of the century."

"Hmm?"

"It don't go so well."

"So it peaks before Microsoft and we sell early."

He nods, reaches for their notebook, writes it down. "OK. I'll get some more Microsoft when I call him, too. We have the money right now."

"Sounds good."

They lapse into silence again, a train horn thundering somewhere nearby. The waitress comes and takes their plates; their fingers are still curled around their coffee cups. Juliet sneaks a peek at him; he doesn't look like he's paying too much attention to what he's reading, unless he's really that interested in a production of "Hello Dolly" at some local dinner theater. "Hey," she says softly, and James looks up almost too fast, like he's been waiting for this, just this. She reaches across the table, taking his hand. "Thank you."

He nods, swallowing heavily. "I, uh... I got somethin' for you, but I don't know if I should've."

Juliet's heart skips a beat although she doesn't know why. "OK?"

"When we were at the restaurant where you... your family was... When I said I was goin' to the bathroom, I actually went back out to your mom's car." James hesitates for a second. "I, uh... At the ceremony I noticed your mom and dad were both takin' pictures, with different cameras."

Breathing seems optional. Juliet presses both hands to her mouth. "We, we... we teased my mom for... for months. Thinking she'd forgotten to put film in the camera." Her pulse is racing now, and she's almost too afraid to hope.

He reaches down under the table, brings a roll of 35-millimeter film to the surface. "She didn't."

Suddenly everything around her seems sharper, more in focus, even though she can barely see anything through the tears in her eyes, and she doesn't want anyone else to see her like this, but the waitress returns suddenly, bringing them their check. James thanks her quickly, getting her to leave, and Juliet's heart seems to be too empty and too full all at the same time.

It feels like an angry, ragged sob waiting to burst from her lungs, but instead laughter supersedes it, and she's crying and laughing all at once. "Thank you. Thank you." It's all she can say, over and over, and James is suddenly smiling so hard that those dimples are all she can see.

Once they're out in the parking lot, James holds her tight while she gets herself under control somehow, petting over the back of her hair, down along her loosely tied ponytail, and she just rocks against him until it's all out of her somehow and she feels better, lighter than she has in maybe years, still half-laughing and she knows she's letting go of something she didn't think she'd ever be able to let go of, not really.

Eventually he reaches both hands back, trying to undo her ponytail. James been doing this for years and years, but somehow he always manages to snag her hair on the rubber band. This time, he unloops the band expertly, no pulling, just perfect, and his big hand smooths over the back of her head, down along the length of her hair.

"You OK? I did the right thing?"

Juliet can tell he's not sure whether he's asking about her hair or everything else, and she hopes her smile tells him what he needs to know, but she finds herself speaking anyway. "Yeah. You did just fine." Whatever happened, happened, and she's so fucking glad.

James looks down into her eyes, pressing his forehead against hers. "So did you, ya know."

"Thanks for having my back."

She pulls him down into a kiss, and his hand runs down along the back of her hair again. "So you ready to go home?" he asks, and Juliet feels him cringe against her once the words are out.

(Except.)

She touches his face. Her smile is genuine. "Absolutely."

* * *

At the outskirts of town James asks her if she wants to drop off the film at the Fotomat first.

Juliet fiddles with the tape deck in the dashboard, shakes her head. "I just want to see the boys."

It was the winter of '81 that finally did them all in, back in Ann Arbor. None of them were used to those harsh winters, snow piled up against their doors, the endless unearthing of snow-covered cars, those endless gray Marches. Chapel Hill seemed like a fair compromise, a liberal college town, good school system, and far enough south for better weather, a longer landscaping season. And it wasn't Alabama or Florida or hell, even Encino. Juliet, half-done with her second time through college by then, had managed to land a partial scholarship at UNC (for which she'd gotten a supportive "Didn't know they gave scholarships to 40-year-olds, blondie").

Miles and Jin had moved with them; the six of them were a package deal at this rate, and by then the guys had been talking about starting their own landscaping business, anyway. Miles, of course, crowed over the fact that he had the most money to dump into the company, although probably at least a fraction of that was from supernatural fraud, although Juliet didn't really want to know much more about it. At any rate, Miles had loved smirking about being James' boss for a damn change. It turned out, though, that Miles was an oddly fair majority holder, letting the work be split evenly. Jin handled the books, preferring the quieter side of things. James was out most of the days with their teams, but they'd scored a contract with the UNC campus last year, and financially things are at least doable until the future starts catching up to their investments.

Andrew's in their driveway on his bike when they pull up to the curb, and he starts waving and trying to spray the car with a water gun all at once. Of course, that leaves him trying to stay upright without the use of his handlebars, so Juliet's first moments back home consist of jumping out of the car and checking him over for scrapes.

"I'm OK, I'm OK," he keeps insisting, and finally pulls her into a fierce hug. She's down on her knees on the warm pavement, Andrew sitting cross-legged at this point, and she just buries her face into his hair and tries to figure out how it was possible to miss anyone this much after only a few days.

"Dad!" he calls out as James approaches, leans down and cuffs him on the shoulder.

"They call 'em handlebars 'cause you're supposed to keep your hands on 'em, Evil Knievel."

"I know," Andrew sulks as Miles comes around the house from the backyard. He winces when he sees Andrew on the ground, starts trying to apologize.

"Miles, please don't worry about out. It's not your fault -" Juliet reaches for Andrew's water gun - "that Mr. Andrew here doesn't want to actually hang onto the bike." She squirts her son in the shoulder, and he squeals and grabs it from her (of course, she lets him, considering those Other ninja reflexes are still in the back of her consciousness somewhere, deep down). James starts to laugh, and Juliet looks up and catches his eye. Not five minutes home and she's sitting on the driveway soaking wet and giggling like this is the funniest thing in the world.

Seth tears around the side of the house, holding onto his Pogo Ball. "Mommy!" He hurls himself against Juliet, inadvertently smacking her with the side of his toy and knocking the wind out of her. Juliet collapses into laughter and gives up, flopping onto her back.

"Did you catch the Crazy in Florida or something?" she hears Miles say.

"Maybe a little." Juliet brushes dirt out of her hair and hugs Seth again before he ducks away and grabs onto James.

"Jin and Anna are here with the kids. We figured we'd exploit your absence for a drunken barbecue, show Amelia how to do a proper keg stand."

"Wow, you guys really know how to have fun, dontcha?" James says. "Next thing you'll be tellin' me you're playin' dress-up back there."

"Look, what I do in my private life is none of your business."

Jin waves from the grill when they reach the backyard, having decided they'll deal with unpacking later. Anna is pushing her daughter on the swingset; Betsy's got Amelia in the Snugglie and is pushing Anna's son. It makes sense that Jin's been seeing a widow; they understand each other in a way that other people can't. And Anna's kids make for a built-in family, all of them filling in each other's empty spaces.

That's all any of them have ever been doing, really. What Juliet hadn't expected was how it's all turned out better than she could have possibly imagined.

* * *

James and Juliet usually split up putting their kids to bed; he tucks in Andrew one night, and she takes Seth, and the next night they switch. Tonight is a non-fighting night, though, and the boys beg to have a sleepover in Andrew's room. It's summer vacation, anyway, so James sets up the Spider-Man bed tent on the floor and the little guys drag their sleeping bags in there. Once upon a time, either decades ago or not even ten years ago, Juliet and Rachel had held similar events, and not all that much sleeping had been accomplished, but that had been the point after all.

"You still want your story?"

"Yeah," they chorus, but they scramble into the tent, and James and Juliet glance at each other with some approximation of _They've gotta be kidding us._

"You go," James finally says.

"It's a boy tent," Juliet smirks.

"Is anyone coming?" Andrew demands from inside the tent.

James winks and hands her The Twenty-One Balloons, gesturing toward the entrance. "Be my guest."

Juliet's on her hands and knees crawling into the tent when she suddenly thinks of another time she'd been crawling like this. On the dock, outside the sub, Ben waiting for her at the dock with a bunch of wildflowers in his hands. Somehow she can't quite figure out how that moment had managed to flow into this one, but she doesn't dwell on it for long as she lies down in between her kids and feels Seth's head on her shoulder.

Andrew hands her the flashlight, and she turns it on, hovers it over the page.

"There are two kinds of travel. The usual way is to take the fastest imaginable conveyance along the shortest road," she reads aloud. "The other way is not to care particularly where you are going or how long it will take you, or whether you will get there or not."

A few minutes later, Juliet trails off when she realizes that, miracle of miracles, they've actually fallen asleep. She keeps her voice quiet so she won't wake them up, not really. "Sometimes you end up in another place entirely, but that's OK, too," she whispers, and Andrew stirs slightly. Seth's utterly still, hanging onto his Pound Puppy. She's at the door of their tent, about to crawl out. But she pauses. Looks over her shoulder and watches, as they edge closer to each other in their sleep.


End file.
